Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson was on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” last night. Colbert, who does sort of a Bill O’Reilly homage, quizzed Nelson on his stance on the war in Iraq, which frankly shouldn’t upset the White House too much. He is basically for keeping the troops there, and for only shooting at people with Al-Qaeda terrorist uniforms on, and not with Sunni or Shia civil-war uniforms on. So that should be pretty easy.

Click the picture here to see the interview in a new window.

But that isn’t what we on Leavenworth Street were most alarmed about. No, our first reaction was TO HIS HAIR! My gawd, it looks like he stopped by Dairy Queen before the show and dipped his head in Magic Shell! Talk about your Breck Girl!

OK, for a little comparison, let’s see what Nebraska’s Senator Chuck Hagel would look like if his barber added a little shoe polish to his rinse:

So there you have it. And by the way, Nelson’s office is already way out in front of this brown-wash: A story in The Hill this morning (So Comity’s not dead in Senate – The Hill – 7/17/07) notes that Nelson and his spokesman have already thrown Nelson’s hair stylist under the bus, claiming the "barber" said, “wash this cream through your hair.” Yeah real nice, blame it on the beauty shop…

Sweeper -- We all appreciate a few laughs at the expense of goofy E. Ben and his big hair. But how about an update on "Inebriated Nantkes"?

Today's World-Herald reports that "four months late and after two reminder letters, State Sen. Danielle Nantkes paid a $750 state penalty for missing the deadline to file a campaign finance report last winter. But her check — for $765.45, including interest — was not honored by her bank. The Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission was notified Monday that the July 9 check drawn on her campaign account was being returned because the account was closed."

For Leavenworth readers who don't recall, Nantkes, 29, was given one year of probation and fined $1,000 in May after pleading guilty to driving under the influence and refusing a chemical test following a Feb. 14 auto accident in which she ran into a Lincoln snowplow.

The liberal Lincoln lawmaker was assessed the $750 late penalty after filing her final 2006 campaign finance report on March 1, six weeks after the deadline. The commission's auditor reviewed her March 1 report and raised several questions, including why had she accepted $5,254 more in contributions from special interest groups during 2006 than was allowed under campaign laws, and why she reported receiving lower amounts from several interest groups than those groups reported giving to her?

If Dave Hergert was the Dems' target in 2006, Nantkes should be in the GOP's crosshairs today.

The DUI stuff is old news. The late payments and the bounced check don't seem to be that huge of a deal. I could be wrong, but I think the late reports are common. And I think her excuse on the check makes it not that big of a deal -- except that she's a dope for not hiring someone to do it for her.

Now the rest of the stuff could be serious, but there's no more info on it, so there's not much to say at this point. We'll wait for more info before getting into it further.

Regarding Nantkes, I will disagree politely with the tenor of your post, SS. She was late in filing and showed $11,000 in the hole, then paid a fine. She claims the $11-grand in the hole was her mathematical mistake. Yeah, sure...but even if it was a mistake, she knew she was in the hole and needed money to pay her fines. Where did she get the money to pay the fines? It was special interest money. No big deal...except she accepted such money over the campaign finance limit. So now she is to return $5000-some dollars and she doesn't have it to return. She is in violation of the law. Further, she reported less special interest money than she actually received. That is not only illegal, it is curious considering she was over the limit on special interest money. One might surmise she purposefully reported less money knowing she was over the limit. The NADC auditor is on to her, and we should see a "Hergert" pulled on her. It seems she was over the limit in more ways than one.

OK, before ya'll get all hot and bothered, read what I wrote again.I said the fact that her check bounced -- b/c of a bank issue, and not b/c she didn't have $$ in the accnt -- wasn't that big of a deal.

Please note that I wrote:"the rest of the stuff could be serious, but there's no more info on it, so there's not much to say at this point"

When the findings come back on what she did, we'll return to the issue.